Similarly, it was an artist (lithographer) who started Bertelsmann, the German company that owns 100% of Random House. Random House's largest human stakeholder, Liz
Mohn, owns 19.1 % of Bertelsmann, and serves both on its supervisory board and on the board of The Bertelsmann Foundation, which owns the
other 80.9% of Bertelsmann. Her memoir is, arguably, self-published.

If authors have to publish through a big
corporation, they must write what the corporation wants to hear--which,
shall we say, takes the fun out of their work. It also makes it almost
impossible for authors to write the truth.

Who among today's graduating writers
will travel this lonely road without giving up their art? Harvard
graduates, whether their reading of this landscape defeat or challenge
be, commit one thing to memory: Veritas!